Bulldogs

The Bulldogs finished the regular season 7–1–1, but the Chicago Bears closed at 6–1–4 and then beat Cleveland 23–0 in a post-season match on 7 December. NFL owners met the following January and awarded the championship to Cleveland anyway, ruling that the Bears game had come after the official end of the season and counted only as an exhibition.

Jeweller Samuel Deutsch had set up the Cleveland Indians in 1923, then in 1924 paid $1,500 for the Canton Bulldogs and folded that roster into his own club, renaming it the Cleveland Bulldogs. Guy Chamberlin, already a Hall of Fame end, served as player-coach that championship season, with Link Lyman anchoring the line.

Steve Owen joined for the 1925 campaign, but the team that had just won a title never built on it. Attendance at League Park, known during the Bulldogs' years as Dunn Field, fell off badly enough that some 1927 home games shifted to Luna Park instead. That same year Deutsch signed quarterback Benny Friedman for a reported $18,000. The move didn't save the franchise. In 1929, Tim Mara of the New York Giants bought the club outright simply to get Friedman onto his own roster, and the team that had once worn maroon and white in Cleveland ceased to exist.